LifeLock - Identity Theft Protection
By admin | June 15, 2008
If you’ve watched TV, listened to the radio , or picked up any magazine lately, you have probably seen an ad for LifeLock, the idenity theft prevention service. A company based in Tempe, Arizona, says they have enacted a system that stops an identity thief from using someone’s personal information to get what they want. For $10 a month, LifeLock will create and monitor a fraud alert on your name with the three major credit reporting bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union. When a fraud alert is placed, potential lenders are forced to call you at the number listed on the alert before they can issue you a loan or line of credit. Anyone can call one of the credit bureaus and ask for a fraud alert free of charge, but it expires after three months. LifeLock automatically renews fraud alerts for their customers. LifeLock will also make calls to request that your name be removed from mailing lists to help you reduce the number of unsolicited offers. And if your wallet is stolen? LifeLock’s WalletLock program will help you cancel and replace your credit cards. LifeLock stands behind their services with a one million guarantee. If their service fails to protect your personal information, and your identity is stolen, they will spend up to $1 million recovering your losses and investigating your case.
Co-founder of LifeLock, Robert J. Maynard Jr, resigned after it was revealed that he had once been accused of taking money from consumer bank accounts without permission. Maynard spent several days in a Maricopa County Jail in 2003 because of an alleged unpaid $16,000 casino marker from the Mirage. Maynard came up with the plan for LifeLock while sitting in his jail cell, so other people could avoid being victimized by identity thieves. While it’s true Maynard spent that time in jail, he was not the victim of identity theft. The $16,000 casino marker was his. The Mirage had received a copy of his Arizona driver’s license when the Mirage made him the loan.
In 2007, it was reported that the founder and CEO of LifeLock, Todd Davis, became the victim of fraud when someone used his widely published social security number to get a $500 loan. The alleged identity thief did not face any criminal charges because LifeLock stepped in before the police could complete investigating the crime and coerced the suspect into making a videotaped confession that is not admissible in court.
Despite these marks against their reputation, LifeLock is still accredited by the Better Business Bureau and recently received a five-star rating by TopConsumerReviews.com. It appears that, overall, LifeLock membership really is an effective way to keep identity thieves at bay.
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LifeLock Million Dollar Guarantee
By admin | June 13, 2008
LifeLock guarantees all of its clients up to 1 million dollars for reimbursement if their service fails to thwart and identity thief. This guarantee is a bold statement and shows how committed Lifelock is to their clients. Lifelock has shown that it can and will back even the most costly incidents, even if it is not your fault. Identity theft has become such a rampant and common thing in the world that even kids as young as 8 years old have become the victims of identity theft. LifeLock can protect your entire family from becoming the victim of identity crime. Now to be honest, you can call all three major credit reporting bureaus and place fraud alerts on your file for free, but thats a lot of time and effort the majority of us are not willing to do plus they all expire after just 3 months. For $10 per month, LifeLock will monitor your fraud alerts and re-activate your alerts for you for the entire year. Honestly ten bucks is not a lot to ask for such peace of mind. Back that with Lifelock’s one million dollar guarantee and your sure to keep your identity safe and your good name secure.
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LifeLock Sued for Corporate Identity Theft
By admin | June 12, 2008
LifeLock is in the news again.
The identity theft protection firm whose CEO lists his Social Security number in ads for the company is being sued by Namesafe, a competitor in the identity theft protection market, for allegedly stealing the company’s corporate identity and deceptive trade practices.
According to papers filed in Tennessee, Namesafe claims that LifeLock stole its trademark and deceptively diverted traffic meant for Namesafe’s web site to LifeLock’s own web site.
The suit claims that LifeLock purchased sponsored ads on major search engines and portals such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and Hotbot that tricked users into landing on its site. Namesafe says the ads have disappeared since they were discovered, but it provided screen shots of the search results pages in its complaint. The company doesn’t know for sure if the ads disappeared after it filed its suit but believes that is what occurred.
The company says that when users did a search on the word “Namesafe,” sponsored ads appeared at the top of search result pages, which included a link for “Namesafe” and “Namesafe.com.” But when users clicked the link, it took them to LifeLock’s web site instead. The name LifeLock appeared in the ads next to or beneath “Namesafe” and “Namesafe.com,” but Namesafe says the ads were clearly designed to fool Namesafe customers.
“It’s like me taking out a newpaper ad for LifeLock.com and putting my phone number in it,” said Namesafe founder and CEO David Ridings. “It’s the same thing but on the internet scale. The purchasing of an ad that says Namesafe.com is deceptive and confuses consumers.”
Namesafe launched its web site on February 25th and said it discovered the problem about a month ago in Google search results. Ridings says his company filed an informal online complaint with Google asking it to investigate. Google responded by saying it would not get into issues over the legalities of who can purchase brand name ads. Ridings says Google did not, in its response, confirm that LifeLock had purchased such ads.
Namesafe spokesman Dick Marsh said the company decided to file the lawsuit after he discovered recently that the problem was occurring on other search sites as well. Marsh sent a press release to reporters after the company filed the suit.
I asked Ridings if his company sent a cease-and-desist letter to LifeLock before filing the suit or sent the company any inquiry asking it to explain the ads. He said Namesafe did not and defended the company’s decision to file suit instead.
“This was not an honest mistake,” he said. “We made a decision to do what we needed to do to get them to come down. We have a lot of television and radio ads and with every passing moment there’s more potential for a consumer to be confused.”
LifeLock released a statement denying that it purchased ads using Namesafe’s brand name:
“Following notice of a pending lawsuit from WSMV in Nashville, TN on Thursday, we immediately began an investigation and determined that LifeLock Corporation has never purchased any competitive branded search terms. To be clear, LifeLock Corporation has never used the ‘NameSafe’ name in LifeLock ad copy,” the statement reads.
Google has not yet responded to requests asking about the ads. I’ll update this post if I hear back from the company.
This is not the first lawsuit against LifeLock. The company has been the target of class-action lawsuits from customers questioning its protection claims as well as a suit from credit reporting agency Experian for acting on consumers’ behalf to place alerts on their credit accounts.
The company was also the target of much controversy last year after a reporter uncovered information about the background of one of LifeLock’s founders, who has since resigned.
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